The Vortex Swirls
by Stossle
Summary: "The vortex swirls and I will tell you a story.  I will tell you my story."  The story of the Tardis and a love that lasted forever.  Spoilers for everything.


**The Vortex Swirls**

The vortex swirls and I will tell you a story. I will tell you my story.

There is another story, one told throughout time, by fire light and light powered by the core of artificial stars. A story of a man, a terrible, beautiful, spectacular man. The saviour and the slayer, the oncoming storm.

The saying goes in less enlightened times, that behind every great man there is a great woman. I am she. You may know my man, my Doctor, you may have worshiped him or feared him. But do you know me? I have travelled through distant lands and aeons and eras. But I hide in the daylight. You may walk right past me and never see me.

My doctor has had many companions but none as constant as I. I am she who is always there. Together we lost our hearts and homes. He was _a_ Time Lord and now he is _the_ Time Lord. I was _a_ Tardis, now I am _the_ Tardis.

If you know my man you may think me nothing more than a ship, sailing through time and space. Magical and mystical but just a machine. But I am so much more.

The time vortex swirls, it's what I am. Tendrils flow from my heart and connect me to every point in space and time. Stitched so tight that I am time and time is me. And so I fly along those tendrils, fly through the vortex, be anywhere, anytime, anything. Until I broke and wasn't fixed.

Some time ago, but I am time , so time has no meaning, I became a box, a blue box, I go anywhere, anytime. But I am still a blue box. Marked with the white words of a foreign tongue.

And so I will tell you a strange tale of how I was made alone forever and now will never be alone again.

There is no start and end to my story because I am time and so time has no meaning. But I think it starts with a paradox.

The Master took those tendrils, and ripped them and shaped them until they bent back and forward between now and then, the start and end of the human race. Twisting and corrupting reality with my flesh, forcing me to be his unnatural creation. A paradox machine.

Being a paradox hurt. Not tearing skin and muscles and tendons and nerves, it's a long time since I felt those things. Human experience can't really explain how it hurt. There is nothing like me and nothing like my pain. Analogies are all that's possible. From a human perspective, it hurt like I was forced to stand on my head, with my legs bent behind my neck, pins levered beneath my fingernails, and acid dripped in my eyes, while my mother whispered in my ear, quietly, and softly, and calmly, that she had never loved me.

The vortex swirls and I remember, I wasn't the only one that hurt. I felt my doctor's regeneration ripped from his flesh, stiches in time that kept him safe. I felt Martha travelling the earth, tears falling at night when she was all alone. I felt Jack scream and yell, so the Doctor wouldn't hear him cry. I even felt the Master's pain, drum beating in his head, swirling though the vortex, a touch of something familiar.

I couldn't reach Martha, way below, the drum beat shielded the master from my love, and my existence hurt my Doctor. So I sang to Jack, gave him strength to live through death and depravity.

I've loved all my Doctor's companions. Those simple little specks of light, who keep him going, make him whole. The vortex swirls and I remember each one, smiling, laughing, living. Rose was special, the girl who knew no fear, grabbed my Doctor's hand and pulled him back, stopped him from falling into the vortex, becoming part of the vortex, like me. And the song called River. I helped make her, made her and gave her, to my Doctor, forward and back through time, no ending, no beginning.

But Jack. Jack and _I _had a connection. Jack loved _me_. Always tinkering, he had known me, like no human should, touched me and tended me. The vortex swirls and I remember his caress.

But he betrayed me. With his fragile little body he left me, he fought, he died.

Untimely death, and I know time. Time takes, but sometimes, time is ill-timed. Too early for the late Jack Harkness.

The Doctor sent me away to keep Rose safe. But her and me don't know safe. We don't do safe. We wanted the Doctor, we wanted Jack. So I let her see the heart of me and watch the vortex swirl.

Back in time, back to the future, residing in her. We saw the Daleks who'd stripped me and my Doctor from our home, Solace and Solitude. Together we saw the gap, the emptiness, my Doctor was alone, they'd taken my Jack. They'd stripped his life and left his body. The big bad wolf.

So she, we, took their molecules: atom by electron, by neutron, by proton, striped their shells, divided them and spread them. Through space and time. The vortex swirls and I remember bad wolf.

Bad wolf so that moment had happened, will happen, is happening. Bad wolf to bring me. Brought me, to bring him, back.

Because I bring life.

Me and my Rose, Rose who I burn for, and burnt, burned too brightly. My Rose fixed what shouldn't be fixed. Fixed my Jack, fixed him in time. So time had to fix itself and bend around my Jack.

But my Doctor was jealous of my love, my Doctor saw my unnatural creation and ran, my Doctor ran as my heart pulsed in my Doctor, stealing his life, waking the next.

The vortex swirls and I remember how we travelled, my new faced Doctor, my Rose and me. I sensed him sometimes, my Jack, sensed him living with the heart of me pulsing within him. We will live forever Jack and me. There was time. I could wait.

The vortex swirled and I remember Rose ripped beyond my reach. I screamed through the vortex so my Doctor could be heard. Bad wolf bay.

The vortex swirls and I remember Martha, burning bright, burning light, but my Doctor stayed in darkness. Perhaps he missed Jack. I know I did. But I still touched Jack, sensed Jack, in every place and time. Does he know he's not alone?

The vortex swirls and I remember my doctor filling me up with goodness from the rift, recently ripped. And there was my boy, running to me. Hope for the hopeless.

My Doctor was scared, bending time hurts his head. My Doctor told my Jack it was me, me who ran through time to escape his embrace, me who couldn't face my love, because my love was wrong.

My Doctor was wrong. I took my love to the end of time, took my love to where he could die. Where time had run out and the power than feeds him had faded. I did this for him. Eternity is no gift. Born of the Untempered Schism I know. But Jack loves life, he clings to it like it clings to him.

The vortex swirls and I remember no more. Taken from my Doctor, by the Master, backward and forward through time, to make the impossible possible.

Paradox and pain.

They found me, my companions. Saw me. Broken. Couldn't love the corrupted.

The vortex swirls and the impossible happened, I made it happen, because I had no choice. The Master stripped all creation, stripped sanity from the wife, stripped hope from the Joneses, stripped life from my Doctor, stripped flesh from my love.

So I sang to my love, though my soul was sick, sang to him, to keep him sane.

I sang until I head the song. The song of my Doctor, beat out through the breaths of humanity. My Martha had returned.

My love came through blood and pain to save me, killed me to save me, pain to the paradox.

My doctor and my Jack healed me, in the time of healing. Touched me and tended me. The vortex swirls and I remember their caress.

My Jack had to move on, move through time at times own pace. But I'll see him again, my eternal love. We'll live forever Jack and me. One day I will take my Jack to the Untempered Schism that was lost in time. My Jack will see eternity, perhaps eternity should see him.

I was the Master's unnatural creation and Jack was mine. Things that should never be, but are, things that have happened, will happen are happening. Jack came back from the end of time. Jack came back and there's no way forward - except to live, through time and space, live to the end. And at that time, that moment when my creation unwinds, I'll be there for him, I already was.

And so the vortex swirls.


End file.
